Android 2.2 FroYo Breathes New Life Into Dell Streak
Dell Streak Android 2.2 FroYo Benchmark Gaunlet
Dell's fairly recent entrant into the tablet market certainly made a splash when it hit the scene a few months ago, with the company's CEO and namesake randomly making cameo appearances with the device in hand, like one of his one personal private stock toys. Of course, once we got our hot mitts on it for a proper man-handling, we became fairly attached to the device for all its strengths and weaknesses. "Approved" we said, but we new there was more potential lying dormant inside. You see, Dell just wasn't ready to arm the device with a more optimized version of the Android OS, instead opting to release it with a rather unhealthy donut version of the OS (Android 1.6). Ahh but time heals and our friends at Dell promised us that a decidedly more healthy FroYo OS (Android 2.2) was on the horizon. 
Dell's Streak - hamstrung by Android 1.6 like a Jets QB sacked by a Patriots Linebacker
Why slow yourself down with a bag-a-donuts, like the neighborhood boys in blue, when you can stay light on your feet with frozen yogurt? Our sentiments exactly. And so, we've taken the liberty to update our in-house Streak with Dell's latest FroYo-infused release (for direct download to your device). What impressed us most, was just how much horsepower Android 1.6 was holding back. Upgrading to Android 2.2, shall we say, was a bit like releasing the Kracken! No really, it was that good. Behold the datapoints, they tell the story more than a thousand words...
Note: All scores other than the Dell Streak are based on Android 2.1 installations
First, make sure you know what you're looking at. In all tests but the very top BenchmarkPi run, longer bars indicate better performance. Benchmark Pi measures its score in milliseconds to complete, so hence shorter bars indicate better performance there. Even Samsung's 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird chip can't compete versus the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip in the Streak, when the chip is tied down in Epic 4G running Android 2.1 -- but over a 3X improvement from Android 1.6 to 2.2 on the Streak? Yes, the numbers do not lie. CaffeineMark, a Java processing performance test, shows over a 5X improvement and Linpack (measures floating point throughput)? Forgetaboutit...
Our two 3D Graphics benchmarks, An3DBench and Neocore show sizable performance gains as well. An3DBench offers a 2X increase going from Android 1.6 to 2.2 for its fill rate measurements to complex 3D scenes. Neocore, which is bit more industrial-strength, with its OpenGL-ES 1.1 compliant performance measurements, looks at performance with features like bump-mapping and 1-pass light maps. We'll take a solid 37% boost there, thanks to Android 2.2 FroYo.
Dell Streak with Android 2.2 and Dell Stage UI - Free at last.
What else can we tell you? Dell decided to load up their Stage UI on top of FroYo, which does a nice job of organizing things without adding much bloat. Regardless, the long and short of it is, Android 2.2 is all that and a side of fries, kids. If you can upgrade your device (any Android device, not just the Streak), do it today; perhaps even if you have to root it.
Our two 3D Graphics benchmarks, An3DBench and Neocore show sizable performance gains as well. An3DBench offers a 2X increase going from Android 1.6 to 2.2 for its fill rate measurements to complex 3D scenes. Neocore, which is bit more industrial-strength, with its OpenGL-ES 1.1 compliant performance measurements, looks at performance with features like bump-mapping and 1-pass light maps. We'll take a solid 37% boost there, thanks to Android 2.2 FroYo.
Dell Streak with Android 2.2 and Dell Stage UI - Free at last.
What else can we tell you? Dell decided to load up their Stage UI on top of FroYo, which does a nice job of organizing things without adding much bloat. Regardless, the long and short of it is, Android 2.2 is all that and a side of fries, kids. If you can upgrade your device (any Android device, not just the Streak), do it today; perhaps even if you have to root it.
